Industry Updates

Startup Knight Winners Announced

13 Nov 2013

Byte Orbits Startup Knight, a competition aimed at South African software based tech startups and visionaries hosted their annual competition for the second time this year. Almost a hundred entries were received from across South Africa, making it a challenging task to shortlist the 8 startups and 8 concept finalists.

However, after in depth discussions and an elimination process the 2013 Startup Knight finalists were selected:

On Friday 1 November 2013 the finalists were required to pitch to the panel of mentors at the Byte Orbit offices. The carefully selected mentors are all tech entrepreneurs and they assisted the finalists with refining their pitches for the following day when the final judging took place. After an inspirational mentorship day, the finalists were invited to spend the afternoon networking at a social held at the Byte Orbit offices.

The finalists were then required to amend their pitches in order to prepare themselves for the final day of pitching. On 2 November the sixteen enthusiastic entrepreneurs presented their innovative concepts and startups to the panel of judges. Feedback from the judges indicated that the competition between the finalists was tough.

After an entire day of inspiring ideas, the judging had finally come to the conclusion and everyone had a short break to freshen up before the Startup Knight Cocktail Evening at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Granger Bay.

Guests were welcomed with a glass of sherry while delicious combinations of snacks were served at the beautiful venue. Guests, finalists, judges and mentors took the opportunity to network until the winner announcement. The event was very well attended with over 100 guests, which consisted of industry personalities, sponsors, finalists, press and judges.

At 7:30pm Amit Ramdath CEO of Byte Orbit took to the stage to introduce Byte Orbit and talk about his vision for Startup Knight.

Micket was named as the winner in the startup category of Startup Knight 2013. Micket uses a mobile ticket in a new way for creating and marketing events. This is done by Incorporating encrypted QR codes and 2D Barcodes, with brand'able electronic tickets. Micket is connected to Social networks, thereby marketing your event to the people you like most, your friends on Social Networks.

In the concept category AirTaxi was announced the winner of Startup Knight 2013. This concept illuminated the opportunity of using your mobile airtime to pay your taxi fare. This concept comes in handy if you dont any cash or cards on hand.

Following the tremendous positive and encouragement from the sponsors, industry personalities, and corporates Byte Orbit plans to run Startup Knight again in 2014. More information about Startup Knight 2014 keep an eye on www.startupknight.co.za